Snippets from my life as an artist living on a family farm.

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Dye Day! …Results…

I may have posted of my intention to go to Dye Day, but I’m pretty sure I did not…Here’s a quick recap.

I have been emailing another weaver in TACA about dyes, dyeing warp, techniques, etc. She’s been absolutely wonderful and answered my many questions! If you aren’t familiar with Vickie Vipperman’s work, you should totally check it out! Everything she makes is beautiful.
Anyway, Vickie mentioned in one of her emails that she and Teresa Hays host a Dye Day every year for the Handweavers Guild of Nashville (HGN, a division of Handweavers Guild of America). She said it would be at her studio and that I was more than welcome to come. And that it was FREE. All I had to do was bring my own yarn? Free dyes? Free food? Company of other weavers?! YES, PLEASE!I woke up at 6am on Saturday morning to start milking my cows so I could leave in enough time to get to Ashland City by 9:30. The cows were not cooperating, but my husband (who is the most wonderful man in the world) took over milking for me so that I wouldn’t be late. :’) What a sweetie! I took a kale Caesar salad that I threw together 5 minutes before I had to leave and grabbed some pre-wound skeins and warp bouts and drove off. It was a LOVELY day. I won’t post the pictures I took of the studio but let me just say, it’s beautiful! At one point Teresa caught me drooling over all the shelves of yarn. Vickie has dyed warp bouts hanging everywhere and a huge selection of coned yarn. She has two lovely looms, a small portable one (looked like a Schacht Wolf Pup, maybe?) and a Schacht Mighty Wolf. Her dye kitchen is well stocked too (More drool!!). Vickie uses the furnished basement of her house as her studio. It’s probably around 800+ sq. ft. Totally jeal! I do think I can make my little one room studio work well for me though! Being able to see how someone else sets up their studio helps me think about how to set up mine. ANYWAY, you’re probably waiting for the pictures of COLOR!!

6 warp bouts, 3 warps, 9 scarves in the making.

Lovely space dyed skein, all balled up.

Probably my fave of the two skeins. Love that rich navy and chocolate-y brown.

I love my results! I have been meaning to start dyeing all that Tencel yarn but have been too intimidated to do it because I’m just not sure how to go about doing it in a home environment. I haven’t done a lot of dyeing outside of school and I have kind of lost my confidence. This helped me get the dyeing bug again. It’s especially good for a summer project since the weather is nice.

I’ve decided to start dyeing on the weekends. I’ll probably dye on Saturday afternoons, batch the yarn and rinse it out on Sunday. I’m actually really looking forward to this! I mixed dyes while I was at mom’s house briefly on Tuesday. I mixed smaller quantities since I don’t have any way of refrigerating them right now…(since my freaking refrigerator is still on back order!! Just ship already!!) I can’t wait! I think I’ll probably dye mostly skeins for now so I’m not tied to using the yarn for a specific project. I need to get winding skeins!!
~JoAnna